Abortion is a real issue, right now

Right to Life Enslave People With Uteri continues their unholy crusade to make whatever dents they can in people’s already-shitty access to abortion in New Zealand.

ALRANZ’s blog has the details and background of what was to be heard in the Supreme Court today:

As it stands, that part of the case is essentially focused on whether or not the ASC should be reviewing (second-guessing) certifying consultants’ decisions regarding the lawfulness of abortions they approve.

But as Idiot/Savant notes, ultimately this is about whether the vast majority of pregnant people can access abortion at all.  Because what it’s really about is stopping certifying consultants from approving abortions based on the “mental health” ground – under which most legal abortions in NZ are performed.

There’s a bunch of issues which warrant discussion on that – some people don’t like that pregnant people have to declare themselves mentally ill, others point out that there’s ableism in treating that declaration as a huge indignity.  As far as I’m concerned, being pregnant when you don’t want to be, having your body in the thrall of another being against your will (not to mention the vast amount of crap heaped on pregnant people, even the enthusiastic ones) is quite sufficiently damaging to one’s mental health to warrant approval.

Anyone who has a problem with that better be prepared to present a dissertation on why infestation and bodily possession are such popular themes in sci fi and horror (my counter argument:  the entire Alien series, and especially that scene in AvP: Requiem which we do not speak of) and how this doesn’t have anything to do with the loss of identity and autonomy involved.

I/S gets to the point:  we need abortion law for the 21st century.  We need an unequivocal statement that bodily autonomy is everyone’s right, and that people like Ken Orr and his ilk seriously need to be ridiculed when they imply that us offering choice is “imposing our morals on people” but them taking choice away is okay because Jesus was all about telling wimminz what to do.

It is no longer good enough to say, as many have said to me over the years, that abortion “isn’t an issue” and “the current law is working fine”.  It’s obviously an issue.  It’s obviously not working fine.  Let’s get it done.

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